ΧΙ TO BULLATIUS BULLATIUS, a friend of the poet's, has been travelling in the Province of Asia, and Horace, who seems to have had little of the Wanderlust himself, asks him whether, tired of journeying by land and sea, he would like to settle down at even so deserted a place as Lebedus. That lonely spot, with its outlook on the raging sea, appealed strongly to the poet, who would love to live there, The world forgetting, by the world forgot. But after all a man's happiness depends, not on his place of abode, but on his state of mind. XI. 5 Quid tibi visa Chios, Bullati, notaque Lesbos, quid concinna Samos, quid Croesi regia Sardis, Zmyrna quid et Colophon? maiora minorave1 fama, cunctane2 prae Campo et Tiberino flumine sordent? an venit in votum Attalicis ex urbibus una, an Lebedum laudas odio maris atque viarum ? scis Lebedus quid sit : Gabiis desertior atque Fidenis vicus; tamen illic vivere vellem, oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis, Neptunum procul e3 terra spectare furentem. 10 15 Sed neque qui Capua Romam petit, imbre lutoque aspersus, volet in caupona vivere; nec qui frigus collegit, furnos et balnea laudat ut fortunatam plené praestantia vitam; nec si te validus iactaverit Auster in alto, idcirco navem trans Aegaeum mare vendas. Incolumi Rhodos et Mytilene pulchra facit quod paenula solstitio, campestre nivalibus auris, per brumam Tiberis, Sextili mense caminus. 2 1 minorave Mss. (-que E): minorane Bentley. 3 4 et, II. a The most important were Pergamum, Apollonia, and Thyatira. According to some editors, ll. 7-10 are supposed to be spoken by Bullatius, perhaps as a quotation from a letter, but why may we not suppose that this lonely sea-side place, which Horace had probably visited when he served with EPISTLE XI What did you think of Chios, my Bullatius, and of famous Lesbos ? What of charming Samos? What of Sardis, royal home of Croesus ? What of Smyrna and Colophon? Whether above or below their fame, do they all seem poor beside the Campus and Tiber's stream? Or is your heart set upon one of the cities of Attalus? a Or do you extol Lebedus, because sick of sea and roads? You know what Lebedus is a town more desolate than Gabii and Fidenae yet there would I love to live, and forgetting my friends and by them forgotten, gaze from the land on Neptune's distant rage. Yet he who travels from Capua to Rome, though bespattered with rain and mud, will not want to live on in an inn, nor does he who has caught a chill cry up stoves and baths as fully furnishing a happy life. And so you, though a stiff south wind has tossed you on the deep, will not on that account sell your ship on the far side of the Aegean Sea. 17 To a sound man Rhodes or fair Mitylene is what a heavy cloak is in summer, an athlete's garb when snowy winds are blowing, the Tiber in winter, a stove in the month of August. While one may, and Brutus, appealed strongly to the Lucretius, ii. 1 f. : poet? With 1. 10 cf. suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, dum licet ac voltum servat Fortuna benignum, te dicas. nam si ratio et prudentia curas, caelum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt. strenua nos exercet inertia : navibus atque quadrigis petimus bene vivere. quod petis hic est, est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus. a 1 tu V, II. 30 Cf. "patriae quis exsul se quoque fugit?" (Odes ii. 16. 19). |